Building History and Use
Sabathani Community Center has served South Minneapolis since 1966. Housed in a former middle school building that is nearly a century old, the center provides programming, resources, and community space for the surrounding neighborhood, including youth development, health and wellness services, food access, senior programming, and workforce development. The building sits near George Floyd Square and anchors a neighborhood that has made community resilience, economic vitality, and cultural preservation central to its future.
For years, the building’s energy infrastructure was among the oldest and least efficient in Minneapolis. Its original boilers, affectionately known around the center as “Thelma and Louise,” had far exceeded their useful lifespan. The facility received a near-zero score on an EnergyStar audit, and the combination of aging heating systems, 104 individual air conditioning units, and a building envelope in need of improvement was driving significant energy costs and carbon emissions. Replacing that infrastructure was certainly a sustainability goal, but it was also a financial necessity that would allow more of Sabathani’s resources to go directly toward the programs and people it serves.
Why Geothermal?
Sabathani’s Community Energy Project was developed with a vision to transform the building into a Community Resilience Hub: a facility capable of providing power, services, and shelter to the surrounding neighborhood during grid outages, extreme weather events, and other climate-related emergencies.
The full project combines geothermal heating and cooling with rooftop solar generation, battery backup storage, and microgrid technology, creating a system that can operate independently from the grid when conditions demand it. Darcy was selected to design and install the geothermal system, which replaces the building’s outdated boiler and cooling infrastructure with a three-well groundwater-enabled system sized to serve the main Sabathani building with capacity to expand to additional housing on the campus. Projections estimate annual energy cost savings of approximately $61,000 and a reduction of 550 metric tons of carbon emissions per year.
The project is also part of the broader 38th Street THRIVE Strategic Development Plan, a community-led initiative developed with the City of Minneapolis to preserve the area’s African American history, economic vitality, and access to living-wage jobs. The Community Energy Project is designed to create a living laboratory for geothermal, solar, and energy efficiency careers, with job training built into the program alongside the physical infrastructure.
Design and Construction
The geothermal retrofit at Sabathani is being completed in phases while the building remains in active operation. Early construction milestones included the completion of three wells, the safe removal and recycling of the original boilers, and the advancement of interior mechanical work. Underground piping installation and rooftop solar and battery storage installation followed as subsequent phases of the project.
Funding for the project has been assembled from a wide range of partners, including the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, the McKnight Foundation, Xcel Energy, the Center for Energy and Environment, and state legislative support. The project is also part of the Xcel Energy Resilient Cities Minneapolis initiative, which selected Sabathani as one of three buildings for rooftop solar and large-scale battery storage installation.
A Community Institution, Built to Last
The Sabathani Community Energy Project represents one of the more ambitious geothermal retrofits in the Darcy portfolio, both in scope and in what it means for the people the building serves. When complete, Sabathani will have gone from one of Minneapolis’s least energy-efficient buildings to a model of how older structures can be transformed into resilient, clean-energy assets that serve their communities for generations.
As Sabathani’s own leaders have put it, saving money on energy means more dollars available for the programs, services, and people that have made the center the heart of South Minneapolis for six decades and counting.